Can anyone give me tips for removing old soot from a figure? Specifically, an old Kenner Power Of the Force Star Wars figure. So far I've tried scrubbing with dish soap, soaking in soapy water overnight, and soaking in Coke. I read somewhere that soaking in Alka Seltzer may do it, but I haven't had the change to try it yet. Scrubbing with dish soap got most of the soot off, but there's still a stubborn amount clinging to the top of the head, center of the chest, and arms/hands. Either that, or it's stained, I can't tell.

Barring that, will I be able to paint over the soot effectively? Has anyone tried it before?

This is in preparation for my first custom. Looking forward to getting into the hobby!

We've got an uncooperative oil stove for heat, so I'm well acquainted with getting soot off myself, and other items. Using that Goop, I've gotten soot off skin, clothing, plastic, metal, etc., so I see no reason why it wouldn't work beautifully on toys as well.

As long as the soot smudging is minimal, you could probably paint over it with no problems. However, If there are any relatively large soot particles, they'll probably get stuck in the paint and create little bumps. Lighter color paints, especially white, might become tinted by the soot as well.

Better check to see if goop has any effect on soft,hard plastics or rubber on your figure.If after washing with soap and a brush and the soot doesn't come off, Maybe you can consider sanding with fine grit sand paper and painting if you want to restore the figure

Thanks everybody. I can say with certainty now that Alka Seltzer does nothing useful, at least not on these figures. I'll try Goop next (on a test figure, not the one I'm wanting to customize). I'll report back with the results.

Well, a thorough Gooping helped a little, but not nearly enough. I guess next I'm going to go nuclear. I read on a tutorial that Goof Off is useful for stripping the paint from figures--I figure if it can strip the paint off, it has to be able to get soot off, even if the paint comes with it.

I spoke with a few fire fighters I used to work with and they said the best stuff for removing soot are WD-40 and oven cleaner. I can't say if they would damage the plastic, but it should remove the soot according to them.

WD-40 got off some, but not all of the soot. It also seemed to discolor areas of lighter paint (I'm sure it's discolored after applying the WD-40, but I'm not sure exactly why). Goof Off, as advertised, took off both the soot and the paint. I haven't had a chance to try oven cleaner yet.